Advances in RFID and near field communications in embedded systems

This special issue of the EURASIP Journal of Embedded Systems is intended to present recent developments in near field communications and in particular RFID technology. After maturing for a decade of years RFID technologies have found numerous applications in as diverse areas as e-commerce, logistics, social networking, area body networks, automation and many more. While many techniques rely on passive tags, others use energy harvesting and alternative energy sources to make them available even if not enough energy is present. With every improvement in data rate, storage capacity, HW complexity, energy consumption, and operating range, the potential range of applications increases even further. Due to its low requirements and small size, RFID technology is expected to be an “invisible” technology that will influence our life substantially.

Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology is foreseen as a promising solution to overcome the limits of ultra-high frequency (UHF) techniques toward the development of green radio frequency identification (RFID) systems...